The Sentry
by Red Molly
Summary: Gutterson: His World.
1. Evinrude

When they pulled up in front of Amelia Riffe's house, they were greeted by a four year old sentry. The boy held, in one hand, a stuffed dragonfly. He wore black rimmed glasses and a blue Transformers t-shirt. There was an upside down stainless steel colander on his head. He stood straight as a chalkline at the edge of the yard, watching as Raylan and Tim got out of the car. Raylan smiled at him and stepped up in the yard.

"Hey little man, where's your mama?"

The boy was silent for a moment, his head tilted back all the way, staring straight into Raylan's eyes. The colander was in grave danger of falling from his head.

"Don' stand on my grass," he said.

Raylan's eyes went wide. Tim snickered.

"Don' _stand _on my grass," the little boy insisted, and Raylan took a giant step backward onto the street.

"Okay, I'm not standing on your grass." He raised his hands and spread his arms. _I come in peace! _ As he did so, his jacket fell open and the little boy caught sight of the badge on his belt. He stared at it, and the silence was so much like a standoff that Tim had to bite his cheeks to keep from howling.

"It real?"

"Yes. Would you like to see?" Raylan unhooked the badge and held it out to the suspicious little fiend.

"Don' stand on my grass." He came down the bank, snatched it from Raylan's hand, and examined it thoroughly. Raylan coughed with dismay when he bit the edge of the star. Satisfied, he handed it back to Raylan and tucked his dragonfly under his arm.

"You can come in," he said. He turned his sturdy little self back around and headed toward the house. Raylan pointedly walked around the bank to the sidewalk, climbed the concrete steps, and followed the little boy. Tim started to follow when the sentry turned around and pointed a stubby finger at him.

"You stay here. Don't stand on my grass."

"Well he has a star too," Raylan pointed out, reasonable.

"Nuh-uh," said the little boy.

"Nuh-HUH!" Tim called from the street.

The little boy marched to the edge of the bank and stuck out his hand. Tim proffered the shiny, the boy snatched it, and Tim's badge went through the same examination. The little boy glared at Tim, as if he were disappointed that he had not caught him in a lie.

"I won't walk on your grass." Tim raised his hands, palms open.

"Promise?"

"On my honor as a United States Marshall."

"You can come in."

Tim walked around and trotted up the concrete walk to join Raylan, who, for his part, had not moved from where The Sentry had left him. His eyes were laughing, and Tim shook his head slightly. This was _serious business_! Couldn't the older marshall TELL?

The little boy walked up the steps and put an ear to the door. He looked up at Raylan. "You stay here."

"Can I set down on the swing?"

The Sentry gave it thought. "Yes."

"What about me?" Tim asked.

The Sentry shot him a dirty look. "You stand over _there_." He pointed at the porch railing, and Tim leaned up against.

The little boy cracked the door just a tiny bit, and then dashed inside. Raylan's brows were up clear underneath the brim of his hat and neither grown man could keep the smile from crawling across their faces.

"You ever seen anything quite like that?

Tim shook his head and laughed. "Nope." There was a pause. "Wonder why he's so fussy about his yard?"

The door smacked open and The Sentry and his colander came around the corner. "You stand on my grass?"

"No, we haven't moved." Raylan stood up then, because Miss Amelia Riffe came around the corner and joined her son, white cane preceding her. Tim stiffened suddenly.

"Ma'am," from Raylan.

She acknowledged Raylan, then turned her dark, unseeing eyes toward Tim. "Can I help you gentlemen?"

"Yes ma'am. We're looking for Evan Rhodes, and I was given to understand you…"

"That's MY name," spoke up The Sentry.

"Evinrude baby', why don't you go play?"

He paused at the edge of the steps and looked back at his mama. Tim had not moved from the porch railing. Evan Rhodes Junior reached up, tugged Tim's big hand loose from the railing and dragged him out onto the sidewalk.

"Wait here." The four year old trotted around the corner and returned with the necessary equipment.

Tim and 'Evinrude' played for a full half an hour, pushing dirt with a faded yellow Tonka truck and a crane. Evan got the truck, Tim got the crane.

"Why's your mama call you Evinrude?"

The colander had slipped over his eyes, and Evan pushed it up with one grubby hand. "S' from The Rescuers."

Tim couldn't remember why that was supposed to have made sense; he hadn't seen the movie since he was twelve.

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"_What _in the world are you watching?"

Tim looked up from his computer in the bullpen. There stood Rachel, armed with Round Three of coffee-and-a-Danish.

He half smiled and turned his monitor around. Evinrude, as it turned out, was a dragonfly with a hella-strong motor. Made a heck of a swamp-boat captain.

Rachel was currently being treated to the scene where Evinrude, having taken shelter in a glass bottle, makes a run for the shack with a bajillion bats in pursuit.

"I'm sure," she said, around a sip of coffee, "that this has bearing on your current caseload in some way."

"Did you know," Tim leaned conspiratorially over the desk, "that I was _six _when this movie came out?"

"What is that, anyway? Is that the Rescuers?"

Art's office door was propped open and he looked up. "Hey is that good ol' Bernard and Bianca? Allie wore that tape out and we had to replace it!"

"How old is she now, Art?" That was from Raylan, who barely remembered Allie from Glynco. She was just finishing her PhD back then.

"Thirty-eight. With three hellions of her own."

"Got busy, did she?"

"Says the man who's expecting a child for the first time in his life at FORTY." Art clapped a hand over his mouth and mock gasped. "Oh my. Was I supposed to say that?"

Congratulations got passed around. Raylan's eyes took on a light Gutterson had never seen in them before, and he sat back and watched the older man as the conversation took its twists and turns.

Damn drama queen. But this….Raylan actually seemed serious in his joy. In his…was that apprehension? Gutterson decided that he'd be apprehensive too, if he were having a kid with Winona Hawkins. Geezum there was a lot of woman packed into that size four.

Tim got off at five and drove to the house, slapped on some aftershave, and walked back out the door to face the night. And here, he thought, was the million dollar question. Would he, or would he not, be coming home alone?


	2. Gummy Worms

He managed, through a series of strange events, to play five rounds of pool with the hottest woman in the joint and STILL drive home by himself. She was sober and had to work the next morning.

Well hell.

He might as well have gone down to the Veteran's Hall in Harlan.

He, as compared to the woman who whupped his ass three out of five rounds, was not as sober, so he woke the next morning at 5AM with something that, if not nipped in the bud, could result in a hangover of serious proportion.

He chugged two Gatorades (orange), stretched, and did a mile and a piece run. Nothing was moving much this morning. He jumped a couple of deer out of the neighbor's yard and they sprang, dust colored ghosts, across the one lane, up the bank, and back to the woods. Mist hung cool and smooth to the meadow. The line of maple and hickory trees between his little bungalow and the neighbors' was dark, serious.

Tim lived out a little ways from Lexington. He could still get to work in a hurry, but he had a bit of peace out here too. Not as many noises. More visibility. Less ambient light so he could actually see the stars like they were supposed to be seen. There was a telescope in his back room for a reason.

The run and the subsequent endorphin rush didn't quite do the trick, but it did leave him feeling better than he thought he was going to be. He drank another glass of water, made a pot of (sludge) coffee, turned on the computer, and trolled the message boards. Fox News just didn't do the job whenever you really wanted to know what was going on in the world. Neither did any other main-line news program.

He flinched at the list of names. Ten men dead on top of the thirty-plus earlier this week. A good chunk of them SEALS. That desolate land was not a place to die.

It was paperwork. He walked in, rolled up his sleeves, plunked down at the desk, and didn't move until noon. It was Raylan's turn to make the coffee run and he actually REMEMBERED this time. AND brought him a tuna sandwich. Rachel got the hot ham and cheese and Art got three hot dogs. One plain, one with mustard, and one with ketchup and slaw. Tim did not bother with the logic of this. He was sure there was a reason, but there wasn't reason enough for him to be concerned. Raylan had a bucket of chicken and it was quite obvious that he did not intend to share.

He went back to the paperwork and thought, for a moment, about praying for something interesting. Then he thought back to that time up at the outpost in Afghanistan. Up there, the boredom was as fierce as the country. And so you made up rules. If you sang out loud to anything but Johnny Cash you were destined to become gay when you got back stateside even if you had been straight for your whole life up to this point. If you didn't wrap bandages counterclockwise you would get scorpions in your bunk. If you ate the WHOLE pack of gummy worms in an MRE there would be a firefight. Or at least that's what they'd decided. One day, he watched Miller eat the whole package and then DARE Hadji to come down out of the hills and give them something to do. The last gummy worm was red. Tim remembered. He did it in front of everybody, and they were worried. Two days later, Miller was in a MEDEVAC dying on his way to a hospital.

Tim started singing 'Ring of Fire' under his breath. But later, when he was at the pop machines getting a Pepsi, he paused long enough to look in the snack machine and see if there were any gummy worms. There were not. There were fruit gummies though, and he bought those, ate the whole pack, and crossed his fingers.

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A/N: This one's for the boys, past and present, at OP Restrepo in Afghanistan. It is also for Tim Hetherington, who shot a documentary up there with Sebasitan Junger in 2009 and died in Libya earlier this year. The gummy worm superstition is real. Be safe as you leave The Korengal, gentleman.


	3. Grass

He shouldn't have eaten the fruit gummies.

The next morning Raylan met him at the door of the office and turned him on his heel.

"Where we goin'?"

"Amelia Riffe's place. She got shot last night and the state boys were kind enough to reme-"

"SHOT?"

"Chest wound. She's in ICU."

"Well who's got…"

"He's with his aunt, I think. We're gonna be talkin' to her too."

Damn. Damn! Tim sucked in his breath and was silent as the grave all the way down to Miss Riffe's. Raylan was lost in his own head too.

Tim wondered if Winona was having a boy. Or if it was even too soon to know.

The porch light was still on, which Tim found interesting. They could hear the TV inside, voices, bustling. Raylan knocked on the door.

"Miss Riffe? Miss Riffe, U. S. Marshalls?" He said it like a question. Good play, thought Gutterson. Less threatening.

The door squeaked open about a quarter of the way. Well…she wasn't her sister.

"My sister's in the hospital, gentlemen, and my name ain't Riffe. It's Evie South." She smiled. "What can I do for ya?"

"Well, yes ma'am that's what we wanted to talk to you about. I am Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens and this is Deputy Tim Gutterson. We've already spoken to the Sheriff's people, but I wanted to see if y'all might want…"

"Hold on just a sec." She cut him off and stepped out onto the porch. "Evan's down for a nap and I don't wanna wake him."

Legs that went for about eight miles. Dark red plaid tied at the waist over top the shorts. Hair frizzy, glasses bent crookedly, a splint on her left wrist and a couple of bruises on her shins. She was barefoot. She was right handed, and the thumb had been mashed. Her hair was mahogany. Frizz or no frizz, it was the deepest umber in all the world. Gutterson turned off the sound and analyzed. Raylan did the talking. He was good at that, but Tim had eyes for the same reason Raylan had a mouth.

She moved like she worked with her hands a lot. The thumb looked painful but she wasn't favoring it. She was not a shooter. She didn't have the correct muscle definition. Somewhere in the midst of the analyzation he heard "yeah, I'm a mechanic" but he wasn't really paying attention to the vocals just yet. He would.

Just…he stopped at her collar bone. Broken collar bone. Old, but it had healed slightly crooked, which meant (most likely) that she hadn't gone to the doctor over it. Of all the broken bones you could have, that had to be the most annoying. You couldn't really do anything but straighten it out, take the pain pills if you have them, and let the sucker heal.

This girl had been battered. Bludgeoned, really, over a loooooong period of time. And yet here she was, just a chirpin' away while her nephew slept on and her blind sister fought for life in the hospital and Gutterson couldn't help but wonder.

He asked how Evan was doing, told her about her nephew's antics and hit a nerve when he mentioned the grass. Huh.

"He's such a goofy kid." She smiled, but the tightness around her eyes gave her away and frankly, that was all Gutterson needed.

"Did Evan see anything?"

"I…I don't know. Some. I think."

He and Raylan walked back to the car in silence, and when Tim slid into the passenger seat instead of fighting Raylan for the keys, the older Marshall took a pause. Raylan didn't actually say anything until they were out on the highway, and then it was:

"Whuut?"

Gutterson rolled his head back on his shoulders and stared at the ceiling of the sedan. "I don't like her."

"I know. We should have asked to see the kid."

"We should have thought to tie his playin' to drugs, too."

"Yeah well."

They got back to the office and Tim Gutterson did as quick and powerful a search as he could manage on Evangeline South.


	4. Dolce

And like the last woman he looked up in depth, he didn't really turn anything up that he could use. She didn't have a record. She paid taxes on a late model Honda Civic and….of course he couldn't find any kind of employment. Self employed, she said. There were property taxes paid on a sizeable chunk of ground down in a holler somewhere-of course she owned land in Harlan. Of COURSE. Disgust curled in his gut. This was becoming more and more of a stereotype as he went along. Now he just needed to find out who the man was.

Because God knows there had to be one of those in the equation too.

Art coughed from behind his shoulder. "She hot too?"

Tim flinched and looked up at his boss. "You need to trim your nose hairs, Art."

Mullin snorted. "Well?"

"Her hair's too frizzy. This is Amelia Riffe's sister."

"Aw?"

"Aw."

"Why we lookin' into her?"

"Figured it wouldn't hurt."

Art took a sip from his Styrofoam cup. "She's watchin' that little boy you and Raylan ran afoul of, isn't she?"

Tim leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Yeah. I don't like it. The whole thing smells off. "

"Raylan go talk to Ms. Riffe?"

"Yeah. She's under guard. Jane Doe WITSEC."

"What about the little boy?"

Tim hesitated. "We can't really do much with that just yet." He rocked his chair back on the back legs and Art made kind of a rude noise.

"You mean you don't want to put the sister in if she's still in contact with Evan Riffe?"

"Yeah. I….shit, Art."  
>"You got a feelin'?"<p>

Tim rolled his head back on his shoulders and gritted his teeth. "Yeah."

"Well then take forty-eight hours."

Gutterson thunked the chair back down the way it was supposed to be, stood and turned in the same motion and lifted his jacket off the coat tree.

"Already?"

"Call me if you need me."

"Where you headed?"

"Harlan."

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Art shook his head as he watched the soldier walking out the door.

Rachel huffed from her desk, exasperated. Neither of them knew where Raylan was. Neither of them wanted to be in that office. Art cut her a sideways look.

"Go," she said, waving him onward. "Go hang out with your wife."

"I'm not leaving you here by yourself."

"Raylan's a phone call away."

Art made the same rude snort he had in response to Tim's generalization, and Rachel produced the patented Rachel Brooks Arch Expression and picked up her desk phone.

"He is so. I'll prove it."

"You do that." Art giggled under his breath as only a Southern man can do and went back to his office.

Rachel laughed out loud when Raylan actually answered his phone.

"Can you come back in?"

Givens always managed to sound like he was being put upon when she asked him to do something. "Whatcha need?"

"A cinnamon dolce latte. Tim's out and Art needs to be with Faylene."

There was a pause. "Oh. Alrighty. I'll be there fairly quick."

"Cinnamon dolce latte. Extra shot of espresso."

"Is that one of them Starbucks drinks?"

"Raylan I am not in the mood."

"Well, if I can't find you a Starbucks I'll findya somethin' comparable."

"Thank you," she sang breezily.

Art raised his head up from behind his desk.

"He's on his way."

Art picked up his jacket from the hook and was out the door. Good.

Rachel determined, within her soul, that if Raylan Givens could not find a Starbucks between here and Amelia Riffe's bedside, he would not survive his woman's pregnancy.

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If one was to believe the map, she lived on the right side of the road, but what Tim was driving on was half of a washed out creek bed and half of a low-water concrete bridge. There was a rusted out metal gate up ahead, and he didn't really have a place to turn around.

He loved this shit. This shit got him hard.

And then the dogs came roaring out from underneath the gate and the option to get out of the Blazer and take a look at where he was going to have to back got knocked out too.

This shit got him REAL hard.

They were…what the hell they were he couldn't tell, and he just sat in the truck and waited until they calmed down. There were three. One was a border collie through and through. One was a Rott- German, not American, and one looked like he was Great Pyrenese cross of some kind. Either way, they were big enough that either one of them could eat him whole by themselves and together they'd make him look like a wildebeest at a lion feed.

He looked past the rusted out gate and there was a house. He rolled down the window, yelled "Hey, call your dogs!"

The house looked abandoned, but a long and piercing whistle was sounded, and the canines pealed back.

An older gentleman came down to the gate, leaned over it, and half laughed at Tim. The Rott leaned it's big head against the old man's knee.

"Lost, are ya?"

REAL hard. "Well kinda. I'm lookin' for Evangeline South's place."

"She ain't here." The old man didn't say anything to elaborate, just spit over the fence and mixed the tobacco juice with the mud.

Tim sighed and stepped from the Blazer, pulling his badge from his back pocket. He flashed it, and the old man stuck out a calloused hand.

"Son, I've seen a lot of them in my time. Some of them were fake."

Tim proffered the shiny for the second time this week and waited.

It occurred to him that it would be difficult for a Honda Civic to navigate the creek-bed behind him and he added that to her layer of lies.


	5. South

A/N: Sorry about the delay, y'all. Much happening in RL that is exciting but time consuming. I am uncertain of this...

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The old man ran a thumb over Evan's toothmarks on the badge and looked up, half laughing.

"Well you're not the one with the cowboy hat…"

Tim took about a quarter of a second to step back and re-evaluate. "You her kin?"

"Evinrude is my grandbaby."

Which told Tim everything he needed to know. "How come the land's in Evie's name?"

"Because she owns it."

Tim waited, head cocked. His hands just about went to his hips when the old man began to laugh.

"Come on up to the house. That Blazer's not gonna roll off, I don't think."

"Well if it does, the bank'll catch it," Tim rationalized.

The old man looked over his shoulder at the young marshall and chuckled. "True, true."

The Rottweiler growled low.

"Flagan." The name was short, curtly spoken, and the dog calmly stepped to the old man's side. _He _knew what he was supposed to be doing, even if the old man didn't bother to show any kind of caution.

Tim fought to pull the gate to and finally just propped it closed. The border collie did not approve, but the Pyrenees cross had decided that Tim must be okay and followed him to the house at his heels, a happy-dog smile across his broad mouth. Coffee was offered and accepted, and the old man parked him on the glider while he (the gentleman) took the rocker.

"Son, there's not a whole lot I'm going to bother tellin' you. But if you want to know about Evan Riffe and my girls, I am more than happy to explain."

"Well could we start with your name?"

"I am Emanuel South. They call me Manny or Old Man these days, though." He took a long pull on his coffee and settled deeper in his chair. "And your name?"

He didn't know what made him do it, but it seemed the respectful thing to do. "Captain Timothy Andrew Gutterson….well…Deputy now. It's a pleasure sir." He stuck out his hand and Manny South shook it.

"I served in Korea."

"I wondered."

They were silent, taking measure all over again. Then Manny set his coffee cup down on the porch floor, leaned over his knees, and began to speak.

"You asked why Evie's name was on the deed? S'cause she laid the money down for it. We've owned it for years, but me and her mama had it mortaged to within an inch of its life. And she had just got back and had money in her hands and…

"Just got back from where?"

"Baghdad."

Tim leaned back in his seat again and let Emanuel South keep lying. If Evie South had been in the military…..

"You just had somethin' traipse 'cross your mind, son. What was it?"

"She doesn't have any kind of military record…."

Old Man South chuckled, kind of dry. "I didn't say she was in the military, now did I?"

Gutterson sat up straight, patient.

"She was a contractor. Worked for that…uh…U.S. Training somethin'r'other…."

Tim was in mid-draw on his coffee and he surreptitiously choked on it.

South took note and went on. "My girl speaks Farsi. Pashtun. Whatever the hell kinda talk they talk over there. She was goin' to school on a voice scholarship, Eve. Sings too, by the way. And they got wind of her through a teacher, I guess, or somethin', and made her an offer." The pride in his voice was quiet and it….this was getting strange…..er.

Still in COLLEGE and Prince's people looked twice? Really? Everything in Tim's gut rebelled against what he was hearing. It couldn't be true. There could be no truth in what he was hearing. He knew what kind of people U.S. Training Center hired and shipped to Iraq. Hell, he actually KNEW some of their employees. They'd sent _him_ an invite after he got out, and that was back when they could still go by Blackwater. A translator? A _mercenary?_ Shiiiiit.

Nobody in Kentucky was that good. Not even Givens.

He forewent tact. "Where does Evan Riffe come in?"

South's eyes went from merry blue to flat gray in the space of a hundredth of a second. "You mean why did he shoot his wife and the mother of his child?"

"Well…."

Flagan growled for no apparent reason and South leaned forward, balancing his elbows on the frayed knees of his overalls.

"Amelia was born that way. Blind. Smart. Smart like a whip. Stubborn. She tutored this Riffe in highschool and…" the old man took a burnt breath here and Tim wondered what he was leaving out.

"I couldn't stop her. Nobody can, once she gets up a full head of steam. And the next thing I know my oldest daughter is married to a kid with no job and no prospects and pregnant. 'Course, Evan had a job. It just weren't legal. He went to jail, 'cause he ain't smart enough to keep from gettin' caught, and Amelia started using her brain for something other than to hold her ears apart. Pushed a divorce through while he was still locked up and swept her and that little man off to Lexington with a job and night classes and a damn apartment all by herself."

"And Riffe gets out and…."

"Comes callin'. She sends him off, he comes back with a gun. She picks up a phone and calls 911, tells'em what's going on. Gets a restraining order. He gets his ass arrested-"

Tim knew the rest of the story from this point. He'd read the files. Evan Riffe was not a good man.

The phone rang suddenly and South stopped mid-soliloquy.

"Do you need to…"

"I better." The old man rose, hasty, to his feet and made the kitchen phone in three strides. Flagan went with him, but the Pyrenees

The conversation was short. Tim could smell the pain before South moved back out to the porch, a shuffle. His face was deep inside itself and Gutterson knew before Emanuel South ever said a word that he no longer had a daughter.

The marshall didn't know what to say, so he didn't. He just stood, shook South's hand. Whatever the truth was going to be about his younger child, it could wait. That precious kid was not going into hiding by himself. Tim was not going to let that happen.

South read it in the man's eyes and took a long long breath.


	6. Music

_A/N: Um...this one is as much telling as it is anything else and I'm not certain of the structure. Thoughts? _

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Gutterson got back in the Blazer quietly, thanked his lucky stars he didn't bust a tire coming down off of the rock pile he'd parked on, K-turned and headed for Lexington.

His mind was BUZZING. He was furious. He was worried for the little man. He was gutting his way through the logistics in his head and it made him ill. He was angry at Evie for still not quite fitting into his judgment. And he wouldn't tell anyone in Kentucky alive this, but he was still outraged over Music.

He pulled out on the interstate and flopped his phone open. He had enough bars to consider himself back in civilization so he made a call to a memorized number.

"Well hell man, I thought you died!"

Tim chuckled. "Bobby, I'm too mean to die this young."

Bobby chuckled. "True that, my man, true that."

"Hey listen. I need some information on somebody….."

The levity dropped from Bobby Rushdie's attitude with profound immediacy. "What kind?"

"Does the name Evangeline South mean anything to you?"

"Oh God what kind of trouble did she get herself into?"

The fact that Bobby Rushdie considered Evie South capable of trouble was of note.

"I just ran across her is all…"

"You're investigating….South? _South_?" Bobby always was good at adding two and two and getting sixteen.

"Um…kinda…"

"Listen man, she's good people. All the way across the board. I never worked with her personal, but if you want to talk to somebody who did you need to call Swope. She was his interpreter and he said she was just solid gold out there, man. Solid."

Tim allowed his silence to speak for itself.

"You don't believe me."

The silence yet again.

"Listen man, you need to call him. You really do. Because if you're thinkin' she did something, she probably did it for a plausible reason. She's got sense. If I know anything about her at all, it's that. And really…she kinda reminds me…" Bobby paused, realizing.

"Reminds you of what, Bobby?" Gutterson's voice took and edge he didn't mean it to.

"She reminds me of Kathy, man. The couple of times I met'er and talked to her."

Tim really wished that Rushdie had not made that statement out loud. He really wished that his squad member had not opened his mouth and said those words out into the world.

He hung up before Bobby could start with his amazing multiplying act again. Because he would. Bobby Rushdie was a nosy individual. Cautious, but nosy.

Dammit.

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Gutterson called Art on his cell.

"You find what you were looking for?"

"Well kind of. I still have thirty-two hours."

There was a pause….. "You got anything else to tell me?"

"Um…I need to talk to Evie South. Not necessarily under the lights, but I need

to talk to her."

Art had this whang to his voice when he was positive that you'd gone awry in your thinking but he didn't know how and he normally reserved that particular vocal quality for addressing Raylan. Tim was getting the message loud and clear over the crackling cell connection.

"You know….. it's okay if you're not quite right. You know?"

"And we need to start the paperwork getting Evinrude into WITSEC."

"And you're ignoring me."

Tim laughed. "I'll see you tomorrow, Art."

"Do _not _make me regret this, Deputy Gutterson."

Art sighed and hung up the phone. Faylene lay motionless in her hospital bed across the room. She was faking sleep, far to still.

"Yes my darlin'?" He drawled it quietly.

She didn't open her eyes, but there was a smile tugging at her mouth. "Would you like some cheese with that well aged whine of yours?"

"Hey now. That was important Marshall business!" He scooted his chair across the floor until he could wrap his arms around his frail wife's shoulders and hear the laughter in her voice.

"You were still whining, Arthur."

"I was not."

"Were too. Change the channel on the teeee vee. Let's watch House."

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If you're going to bring emotional and sexual tension to a head with somebody for the first time, make sure the setting is suitably romantic. Rome, for instance.

He remembered that night, after. She was the smoker, not him. Stretched out across the bed in a pair of lime green boy shorts and his blue Old Milwaukee t-shirt, one knee propped up. He was in a pair of boxers, lower down the bed with one arm slung around her hips and his head pillowed on her abdomen. They were exhausted. They'd talked for hours. Made love for longer.

"I don't want to get any older than right now," Music had remarked, a little sadly.

He had nodded in silent agreement and kissed the inside of her raised knee.

She was a medic. CSH extraordinaire. He met her on a helicopter ride from hell. Bobby Rushdie survived to the hospital, and then he survived to Germany, and then, when Bobby was headed home and Gutterson had leave, they met up in Rome. Thither also came Kathleen Music.

They'd had a falling out. She'd e-mailed him and told him that she was going to marry that doctor she was engaged to anyway and that she didn't ever want to hear from him again. He'd fired off an e-mail loaded for bear and scalding bitterness, and then she'd died two days later when an IED went off directly underneath the passenger side of the Humvee she was in.

Kathleen Music was forever out of his reach. Irretrievably gone.

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It was dark when he got home, the inky kind that only comes on fall nights before it begins to rain. Gutterson made three phone calls to memorized numbers, woke Raylan up to ask him how much time he had available the next day, and then, shrugging off Kathleen's warnings in his head, dug out that full handle he'd been saving and killed it dead as a hammer.

You can either drink to remember or you can drink to forget. Doing both at the same time will kill you.

He woke up already late for work the next morning and puked his guts out before he made it into Lexington.


	7. To tend:  care for, pay attention to

AAAAAAAAAAAAND she's back! Last week of the semester. No, I don't really have time to be doing this, but I am anyways. I will have roughly two weeks afterwards that I can write. I am sorry, you all, for taking so long and proffering so little. My deepest apologies.

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He pulled into the office pale as a tendon and angry.

Raylan leaned back in his chair, took him in, and said nothing. He'd seen the look. Art stuck his head out the door of his office.

"Hey Tim."

Gutterson set his bag down on his desk and raised a brow.

"Come on in here, son."

Rachel's head jerked up from her desk and she exchanged a glance with Raylan.

Tim walked down the alley between the desks in the bullpen, acutely aware that Something was Up and that he had absolutely NO support system.

He stepped through the door and Art half smiled at him. "Shut that door."

Tim shut the door and sat down, wishing he'd dropped his jacket back at his desk. Getting hot under the collar was not a good thing when the boss was about to tell you something he didn't want anybody else to hear.

Art sat down behind his desk and pinned him up against that glass wall with his eyes. Gutterson waited.

Art Mullin was unsure how to address the situation, so he started out bluntly. "What's got a burr under your saddle about this South girl? Hmm?"

"Nothin' that…"

Art held up hand. "Na na na. I don't let Raylan play the emotionally damaged card. I'm not letting you do it either."

Tim took a long breath, hauled his wallet out, and flopped down the picture of Kathleen. It was tattered around the corners. That umber hair was down, the dress was coral, and she was balancing on the edge of a fountain, poised like a dancer. Black frame glasses on the tip of her nose. Grace, she was. Everything she was.

Art picked it up carefully. He turned it over. Looked at the two different styles of handwriting. Looked at the dates. He set the photo down just as carefully.

There was a silence. Art took it in and silently offered the bottle of bourbon from his desk drawer. "Hair of the dog," he said, and Tim took a pull. Gutterson handed the bottle back and Art began to speak.

"You know how long it would have taken me to admit that whenever I was your age?"

Tim shook his head.

"Problem is that you're letting it happen."

"Yeah." He took a long breath and let go of a half-apologetic smile.

"I did a little bit of nosing around her."

"Yeah?"

"She's um…interesting."

"Kath….uh…Evie?"

"Evie. Evan Riffe has two bullet holes in his body compliments of her. That's if you're reading through the lines on the hospital report."

Tim cocked his head.

Art did that giggle of his again. "It appears that he walked up on her sister's porch for the third time and broke a window. Evie shot him through the broken glass, walked out, picked him up by the lapels and hauled him to the ER, where she coolly walked out after giving her statement."

He shook his head, half laughing. "Kathleen would have rolled him off the porch into the flowers and left him there."

"That's the difference between the woman that burnt you and the woman you're mad at, son."

Gutterson's eyes were too open to be honest, and Art handed him back the bottle.

"What did she do to you?"

"Art I…."

"Then don't. But get it open and put some sun on that wound. And don't you dare hold back the pursuit of justice because you're hurting over something you can't change. You understand me?"

Tim nodded, solemn.

"Do you understand me, Deputy Gutterson?"

He straightened again. "Yes sir, I understand."

"Alright then. Go talk to that girl. Take Raylan with you. Get her safe."

Tim rose from the chair, calm. "Sir yes sir."

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They met her at a park in Lexington, Evan and his dragonfly were out playing on the swing set, sailing high on the canvas and chain. Raylan sat on one side of the bench, nearly silent for a change. Tim did the talking. He told her about talking to Bobby. He told her about talking to her father, and to Heather, and to someone they both knew as Solomon, and she nodded, understanding.

"So I guess my question, Miss South, is this. What, if any, contact, do you have with Evan Riffe?"

"You mean besides the Livewire I've got on his car?"

Tim raised a brow. That was a four hundred dollar system, and when you're a….mechanic….

She almost hissed at him. "None. NONE other than to track the location of that car and to make note of any changes in his fucking routine. Is that what was taking you so long?"

"What do you mean?" Raylan drawled, as curious as she, his eyes twisted Tim's way.

"Is that why you haven't offered WITSEC? Because you thought I was in contact with…."

Tim's eyes were down on the sandstone gravel. He wanted to apologize, but that wouldn't cut it and he knew it.

She almost rared back and slapped Tim Gutterson in the mouth, and at that particular moment, Raylan would have allowed it. Just because you know how the world works doesn't mean you know how Kentucky, and let alone Harlan functions. And the boy had forgotten, utterly forgotten, the 'x' factor a family brought to the table.

Oh she was mad. "You mean to tell me you put my nephew at risk because you thought I….!"

The look that crossed Tim's face spoke reams, and she understood them. She was brutal.

You disgust me, Deputy Gutterson. Really you do. Evan's my KID. I am his

GODMOTHER! And you…..!"

"Sorry doesn't cut it. I know." He huffed. Brought his game face up to hers. Raylan remained quiet. "What kind of resources do you have?" Tim needed to know this, for whatever reason.

She took a breath. "I've got more than enough. Between what you're offering and the connections I've got-we could go overseas if we needed to."

Tim wanted to get riled at that, and he had no idea why. He didn't though, and the deed occurred.

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"Just look after my daddy," she'd said.

Tim made a point to drive out there every now and then. The Pyrenees cross adopted him, and after the third time the dog followed Tim out to the highway, Manny South let Tim keep him.

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AN: The Livewire ATX is a tracking system that you can get a subscription to that will either update every five seconds or every ten, depending on which program you've got. You put the sucker on a car and you pay to have a GPS/GSM system keep track of its location. It's almost five hundred dollars by itself, and if you get the ever five seconds update subscription, you'll pay almost fifty dollars a month. I wouldn't do it myself, but if I were Evie South, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

P.S. I like the idea of Tim having a dog.


	8. Resignation

A/N: I own neither XE, Blackwater, COPS, Tim Gutterson, or Justified. I do own the South family, Bobby Rushdie, and Charlie. Sorry it's taken me so long. (winces)

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"This is pitiful," Tim stated.

Charlie cracked open one amber eye, but did not move from where he'd notched his head on Gutterson's right arm pit. On this Saturday night, he found himself wedged good and tight between his dog and the back of his couch. Watching COPS, of all things, and wasn't that just somethin'?

The phone rang. He reached out and snagged it off of the floor, leaning over Charlie. The dog opened both eyes this time, disgruntled. Tim ignored him.

"Hello."

"Hell man, what're you doin' home on a Saturday night?"

Gutterson laughed. "Might ask you the same question, Bobby Rushdie."

"How do you know I'm at home? How do you know I'm not outside some hot club with an arm around a blonde and a brunette waitin' in the car?"

"Cause you ain't the type, sir."

"Th'_hell_ I'm _not_!"

"And I just heard you open the microwave."

There was a pause. Rushdie slammed the door to the microwave closed. "Dammit."

"You know, for a pair of badass eligible bachelors, we don't have the best of initiative, do we?

Rushdie laughed.

They'd started this whole calling back and forth ever since Bobby had pulled the multiplying act. The lieutenant was up to speed on Evangeline South and her nephew, and at this point in the game, Tim was fairly certain that Rushdie knew more than he did.

Tim heard Bobby flop down on a couch with his bag of popcorn and they ran commentary on COPS for two episodes before either one of them realized it was coming close on one in the morning.

"I'm gonna rack out here in a few, man."

"I am not inclined to move, I don't think. And even if I was, I do not believe Charlie would let me."

Rushdie snickered. "Not the first time you been made to sleep on the couch."

"Talk to you later then, man."

"Yup. Oh hey!"

"Hey what?"

"I saw Music's twin last week."

Tim turned the TV off and sat up kinda slow. "Yeah?"

"She looks good."

"Good."

Rushdie held his breath for a beat. "Aren't you gonna ask anything?"

"Ought I be?"

"Well she asked about you. Wanted to know if I knew how you was doin'."

"Oh."

"She's working for Mr. Prince, Tim."

"Oh wow. Wow. As a translator?"

"As his assistant."

Tim was quiet for a little bit. "That's big. Man, that's big. I don't know what to say to that."

"Me either, man. She's stateside. Mostly Eastern US."

"How's the little boy?"

"Evan?"

"Yeah."

"Thickest glasses I ever saw on a child."

Tim laughed. "Has he still got the dragonfly?"

"Not when I saw him. Quiet little dude."

"He's been through a lot."

"Yeah."

Rushdie already knew the answer, but he asked anyway. "You aren't going to sleep tonight, are you?"

Tim sighed. "I have a telescope for a reason, Bobby."

The nosy bastard.


	9. Get some sun on it

'Get some sun on it,' Art had said. 'She asked about you,' Bobby had said. It was with trepidation that he picked up the phone and dialed the number Manny South had given him with a half-twinkle in his eye. The other half was caution. Tim got it. Evie and Evan were all the man had left.

It had been almost a year. It rang five times while he paced.

Evan answered. "Hewwo?"

"Yes, Evan?"

"How you know my name, Mithter?" Missing his front teeth?

"I met you once. A long time ago. Listen is your AuntEviethere?" His words ran together. "Cause I reallywanna…"

"An' EEEEVVVVIE!" Wow. Healthy set of lungs. Tim's ears were ringing when she came to the phone.

"Who is this?" Direct, cautious. On guard.

"This is Tim Gutterson, Miss South. I, uh…"

He thought he heard a smile. "I remember who you are, Deputy Gutterson. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Uh…"

She had the grace to wait for him.

"Uh, listen," he started again. "I'm going to be in North Carolina sometime in the next couple of weeks. The Marshal's Service wants me to test some kind of new Lapua and I wondered….."

"Yes?" It sounded like a jazz note.

"I wondered…Eve, I'm not good at this."

There was a silence, and he almost thought she'd hung up. Then she took a breath. "You've been talking with my daddy, I gather."

"What do you mean?"

"Daddy's the only one that shortens it all the way up to Eve."

"Oh."

"Also, the Marshal's Service doesn't have this number."

"Oh. OH. Oh hell, I'….."

"'m sorry," she finished with him.

"For what?" His gut clenched. She had a date. She had a boyfriend. She had a fiancé. She had a husband. She was going to be out of the country. She had a baby shower to go to. She was planting trees in Sedona. Anything but what he was praying for.

"For getting so angry."

"Oh." He paused. "You had a right to be."

"Yes I did."

"I'd like a chance to explain myself, Evie." If anybody could win a prize for losing words when you needed'em, it was him.

"Would you?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a date set for when you're coming in?"

"They haven't told me yet."

"I should be here. Mr. Prince likes me to keep close to headquarters when he's out of the country."

"How come?"

"I'm the home guard."

Tim didn't ask what that meant. He probably didn't want to know and she probably couldn't tell him.

"So is that a yes?"

"Let me know when you're going to be here."

"So that's a yes?"

He heard the smile over the line and relief flooded his body.

"Keep me in the loop, Deputy."

"I will." His voice almost cracked twice during the small talk before she hung up to put Evan in bed.

That night out in the back field, he still couldn't sleep, and his one and only war whoop spooked the deer. A big shooting star rolled over and it was all so corny he had to call and wake Bobby up to bitch about it.

0ooooooo00000000ooooo0000

Art got suspicious when he started asking for a specific date for the training exercise. Raylan was too preoccupied (for good reason; the man was being framed for murder and getting people he didn't even KNOW in TROUBLE—Tim felt like gutting him over that one-) and Rachel, with her wise eyes, saw everything.

He brought her a cinnamon dolce latte three days in a row and she kept her mouth shut.

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.338 Lapuas are beastly weapons, from what I hear. XE and US Training Center train law enforcement and the like for a fee, and if anybody can get their hands on new equipment, it's those people. I have no idea how you make a .338 Lapua any cooler than it already is, but gunsmiths are mighty creative people.


	10. Travelin'

A/N: Okay. Bear with the background. This is necessary. ALSO: I LIVE. 0_0

**1)** The .338 Lapua is a bullet, not a weapon. I stand corrected.

**2)** The Savage Model 110 BA is a VERY new weapon; it's only been out on the open market for a year and a piece. It shoots a .300 Winchester Magnum, or the Lapua round.

**3)** Flat-shooting refers to bullet trajectory. All bullets, when fired, have varying degrees of arch in the path to their destination. If you have a heavy bullet and a small load of powder, it moves slow and in a high arch, but hits like a sledgehammer. If you have a heavy load of powder and a light bullet, it'll fly straight and fast, but at long ranges, the bullet starts melting due to air friction. Depending on what you're shooting, this can be an issue. If you strike the perfect balance, you have a round that can fly in an almost straight line, maintain its structural integrity, and shred whatever it hits. When fired from the correct weapon, such a round is both accurate and deadly for about two miles. The .338 Lapua is such a round.

**4)** Any inaccuracies in the representation of the testing of this weapon are my own. I do not own Justified or XE. I do own the South family, Charlie, and this body of work.

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"So what exactly is it that has you so all fired up to embark to North Carolina so quick?" Raylan was grouchy. He didn't care who knew it.

"A gun." Gutterson stretched back in his chair. The grin escaped, crawling across his face before he could squash it. "It's BASED off of a Savage Model 110 BA, and we're testing the .338 Lapua round with it. Somebody at XE did something funky to the gun and they want to offer it to the Marshal's Service being as it'd be cheaper all around than the Rem. M-40 Sniper System. So me and the other four of the Marshal's top five riflemen get to wear it out for a week."

"Do what?" Rachel said. She was on the southern end of a caffeine cycle and it was beginning to show.

"Do donut?" Tim replied. He lifted a suspiciously familiar box from the side drawer of his desk and rattled the cellophane.

"Are you stealing from the Little League again?" she demanded.

"We already had this discussion, and it's that time of year. Raylan, you want one?"

Raylan did not justify the question with an answer. Instead, he took two and disappeared behind the paperwork. Rachel took one and headed for the microwave in the break-room.

"Hey!" Tim hollered.

"What?" she yelled back.

"There any coffee in there?"

"No!"

Art stuck his head out his office door. "Inside voices, children…..is that a box of Little League donuts?"

Tim raised the box and opened the lid.

"Rachel turn that coffee pot on!" Art bellowed, and requisitioned the box.

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He called her from the road.

"You're driving it?"

"Seemed more practical. Also, the Service is paying for it."

"You don't like to fly, do you?"

"No ma'am. Not unless I have to. Is that Spongebob I'm hearing in the background?"

She half-laughed. "If I could get him to watch Sesame Street, he would be."

A bit of silence. "What about Blue's Clues?"

"He gets bored with it. Deputy…"

"Tim."

"Deputy Tim? You're nervous."

"Well the last time I saw you I pissed you off royally. And seein' you again ain't exactly sanctioned. You bein' in WITSEC and all."

She laughed openly at that. "Deputy Tim, you have yet to see me well and truly pissed."

As the conversation wondered on, Tim filed that statement away as a possible clue that he might get to know her long enough to actually see that state of affairs. Hey, at this point, he was gonna take what he could get.

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A/N II: Slight crossover. See 'Of Donuts and Paperwork.' (grins)


	11. Gated Community

Three of the four other Marshals had flown in and so were already settled when Tim rolled up to the gate. Swamp-smell and fireflies hung in the evening as the men in the guard-shack hashed out his paperwork and decided that he was actually who he said he was. Tim thanked them for their trouble and followed their directions to the 'accommodations'.

This place….HA. It was like a playground for people who had a thing for explosives. Tim passed three shooting ranges, each of varying lengths, before he reached his destination, and what looked like a mine-field run amok—cratered all to hell. It crossed his mind that Boyd Crowder might enjoy just such a place and the thought disturbed him. The company was putting them up barracks style; a bed to each, thin mattresses, showers, and chow at 5AM.

"Makes me feel like I'm in Basic again," the old timer remarked, meeting him at the door. "Joshua Pendleton, son." He offered his hand and Tim shook it firmly.

"Tim Gutterson."

Pendleton looked for all the world like Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H with white hair and blue eyes. "You the one that took that eight hundred yard shot last fall?"

"Yessir."

"Aw yeah, I heard about that," drawled a Texan twang. He stood up and offered a knotty hand. "Caleb Sanger."

"Late of the U.S. Marines, right?" Tim raised a brow as he took the man's hand.

"In a manner of speakin', yeah." Sanger must have been a good six inches shorter than Tim, but he was about as broad as he was tall. The man was not fat. He WAS a Marine and had a Napoleon complex. In other words, he had ample reason to make a name for himself. He'd served with distinction in both Operation Enduring Freedom and the conflicts in Afghanistan. Tim had seen some of his work and was duly impressed. The United States Marshal's Service had been more than happy to have the man when he got back stateside.

Tim shifted his bag and sat it down on the fourth empty bed next to a Hispanic Marshal who was having it out with her iPhone. "Hi Lish," he said absently and she waved back at him just as absently. Frustrated, finally, she turned the phone off and threw it to the end of her bed.

"Hi Tim," she sighed tiredly.

"Everything okay?"

"He's such a BASTARD."

"He's male. And a teenager."

"I'm not talking about the son, I'm talking about the FATHER." She spat the words out and Tim couldn't stop himself from laughing.

Alicia Gutierrez was a good woman, a terrifying shot, damn useful to have around in a firefight, and had the worst taste in men Tim had ever encountered in womankind. Her husband was a wastrel and she was entirely too stubborn to be smart about him. Tim had worked with Alicia in Kansas, and he'd worked with Alicia in Delaware, and he was deeply glad to know her.

"Briefing's at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," drawled Sanger, dry. "They're too busy to fool with us til later in the day."

Pendleton shrugged. "S'all right with me. Haven't you learned anything from injun-fighting, Sanger? It's worth waiting til daylight. Always is."

Sanger was bristley over that, but he knew it was true. Tim wondered at Pendleton's vernacular and turned in an hour earlier than he was normally wont to. They had one more Marshall coming yet, and if Sanger'd thought about it, he would have realized why the company was waiting until later in the morning to let them at the weapon.

Tim rested. He didn't sleep.

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Max Wallace hit the compound at about three that morning and was bright as a daisy when they headed over for chow. The man was leaner than Tim and roughly two inches shorter. He had hands like hams, though, and a shaved head that Gutterson suspected was hiding a bald spot. Green eyes. Big smile. He and Pendleton seemed to know one another, which Tim guessed made sense. They were both on the older end. Lish was straining but alert and by the time 9AM rolled around even Sanger seemed pleasant. Coffee would do that to a person.

They were told to meet the presenters at the first range Tim had passed coming in, and the five of them opted to walk it. The day and the woods were just too pretty not to. Wallace struck up a conversation with Lish and that left Tim walking between Pendleton and Sanger.

"He always was a flirt," Pendleton remarked.

"Can you blame him?" Sanger was engaged in watching Lish demonstrate a patented Alicia Gutierrez stroll, and to be fair, the Latina was strong with that one. What Sanger didn't know and what Tim didn't bother to tell him was that she only used it when she was working a mark.

Pendleton cut his eyes over to Tim. Tim shrugged.

"Y'all are crazy," Sanger said and cut ahead of them.

Tim snickered. "He don't know the half of it."

"He don't know the half of a lot of things." Pendleton shook his head. Tim figured he might as well ask.

"How long have you been in the marshal's service, Josh?"

Pendleton stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled. "Since '99."

"And you're how old?"

The man snorted. "Old enough to have seen Vietnam, young enough to have worked out of South Africa for a while, and now…well let's just say I'm lookin' to quit here in a few."

"Worked out of South Africa?"

"Oh yeah." He chuckled. "I was what you would call intrepid back then."

Tim laughed. "And you're with the Alaskan Marshals now?" Dear LORD he needed to get this man drunk and telling stories.

Pendleton chuckled. "Well what about you, kid?"

"Afghanistan's all. It was enough."

"Then why the Marshal's?"

Tim shrugged. "Stability, I guess. Structure." He squinted down the wooded hill at the shooting benches. The company people were already there setting up, and she had turned and raised a hand in greeting before he realized Evangeline South was standing down there in the morning sun.

He could see the red in her hair from here, and put that down as something else different than Music. It was down and it had grown since he last saw her. Hit her below the shoulder blades now.

Pendleton took her in and remarked, "I think Sanger's going to change his focus here in a few."

Gutterson was half-riled at that, but he just smiled to himself and raised a hand to greet her in return.

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The introductions were made quietly. Lish eyed Evie with some caution, but by the time the range went hot they were comfortable with one another. Pendleton had been right; Sanger's focus shifted entirely to Miss South, and he was just appalled when Tim greeted her with a casual "Hi, Eve."

Pretty, pretty woman.

"Hi Deputy Tim," she responded, and Sanger shook his head over that for the rest of the day. Pendleton and Wallace sat back with their popcorn and spent rifle shells and watched the show. Tim heard something about 'a cocky sumbitch' from one of them but pretended like he was half deaf.

Sanger was brilliant behind a rifle. Absolutely brilliant. Steadiness came standard for every one of them, but there was something about the way Sanger's compact frame soaked up recoil and the economy of his motion that gave Tim reason enough to stop making fun of him.

The weapon was amazing. When they broke for a midday meal he called Art and did his best not to gush.

"Worth the spending, then?"

"Well, that's up to the high muckity-mucks, but I think so. It's cheaper, and the quality's on the same level with the Remington system."

"And you're bored with the Remington system."

Tim paused at that, but a grin fought its way across his face.

Art sighed. "I'll take it under advisement."

"Alright. I'm out, then."

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Evie didn't go back to the range with them after lunch, so Sanger tried to grill him. Tim would not be grilled, and this frustrated Sanger to no end.

"Well come on, man. At least tell me where she's from!"

"Kentucky."

"Yeah but where?"

"Harlan County. Waaaaay back up a holler."

Sanger absorbed this and Tim laid money the man didn't know where Harlan County was.

They kept shooting. Today they were just getting comfortable with the thing. The company had been kind enough to modify one for each of them, and part of Eve's duty that morning had been making sure the necessary adjustments were made so that the weapon fit each shooter. At the end of it all, they policed the brass from five boxes of the phenomenally expensive .338 Lapua rounds a piece, and Tim couldn't help but wonder if the Academi was going to be so generous tomorrow. Not that they couldn't afford it.

He was having the time of his life.

And then his cell phone rang.

"Hello Deputy Tim."

"Hi Eve."

"I am grilling steaks. Bring friends."

"And beer?"

"I have beer." Tim decided not to look any farther into the mouth of this gift horse.

"And where, exactly, are you grilling these steaks?"

"Drive out past your barracks two miles until you hit a 'y' in the road. Take the dirt half of the 'y' and come on out another mile and a half or so. The gate's open.

"Alright then. Hey, how's Evan?"

"He's…..he's good, Tim. He's getting better at his reading. Still has his dragonfly."

"Well that's…that's cool."

"Come on. The grill's about ready. How do you like your steak?"

"Hang on. Lemme ask everybody else."

They piled into Tim's truck and followed Eve's instructions, Tim and Alicia in the cab, Sanger, Pendleton, and Wallace riding in the bed. All of the steaks were done by the time they got there except for Sanger's, but she'd held off on it because he'd requested that it still be twitching when it hit his plate.

The meal was excellent and the beer was cheap. None of them cared, and Evan found a new friend in Wallace.

Tim had not quite expected her to live on the compound property. He said as much and she laughed.

"Are you kidding? There's over seven thousand acres here, Tim. They've got more than enough."

He was beginning to understand what she had meant back in Lexington when she said she had 'contacts'.


	12. Days

They cleared out of Eve's place around nine in deference to Evan literally being played out. Wallace was grinning ear to ear.

"I haven't had this much fun playin' Tonka trucks in years!"

"Not even when you were drivin' the real ones?" Pendleton raised a brow.

"Nope. Not even then."

Tim grinned at them in the rearview and told them the 'stay off my grass' story later that night. Sanger and Lish laughed til they were near out of breath. They'd both at least heard of Raylan so the idea tickled them that much more.

That led by dent of gravity and cheap beer to the rest of his dealings with Eve. Which led to a flask getting pulled out and a toast being lifted to Kathleen Music.

Chow at 0500 came fast, but they were ready. The sun felt better this morning.

Wallace's rifle had a melt-down halfway through the day and the gunsmith about had a conniption. They decided, by four that afternoon, that there was a flaw in the metal that had been used to make the barrel, not the design, that had caused the hiccup. The other four had continued to shoot with solid results. Pendleton left his sitting in a slough for about a half hour during lunch, hauled it out, reloaded it, and nailed an inch wide disc at nine hundred yards. Sanger's nod was enough for them all.

They had a week. And they were starting to get bored with the range already. Company people offered to take them out-out, up the dirt road past Eve's house and into the woods. They jumped at the chance and came back out with burrs stuck to them, mud to their knees, and grins on their faces. The boys that came back to get them were shaking their heads.

"Y'all look like a bunch of kids with .22s."

Tim shrugged. Pendleton grinned. Sanger made a comment about expensive toys. Lish cracked a smile and wiped the mud from under one eye. The driver raised his hands in concession; no viable point could be made here.

Tim called Rachel when he got back to the barracks.

"Your dog is a snow-beast," she said.

"Yes. I told you he sheds…."

"And how fast DO you run? He's wearing my feet down to stubs!"

Gutterson laughed. "He's got a choke collar for a reason, Rachel. Haul back on him a little bit and he'll match you."

"He's decided that he likes Nick." Tim heard her smile. "I suspect he's going to be asking us for a dog here in a little bit. Mom loves him to death."

"I bet he's eating well then."

"You know it. Mom's cooking for four now. He likes her shepherd's pie."

"I like your mom's shepherd's pie too."

"So I gotta ask…."

Tim sighed.

"Have you seen her?"

"Yeah. Yesterday morning."

"Was that all?"

"She fed us supper last night. Steaks on the grill."

"Did you TALK to her?"

"I couldn't. Too many people."

"Tim."

"What?" He tried to be innocent.

"I accepted bribery so that you could chicken out and walk away from it?"

"I didn't BRIBE you!"

"A venti cinnamon dolce latte costs almost six dollars and you PLIED me with them, sir."

"Not bribery. I was just being nice."

"Not at no thirty dollars a week you weren't!"

"I didn't bring you one EVERY day. Art would'a started asking questions!"

"Oh like he didn't smell a rat already."

They laughed and she ran him off the phone so she could fix dinner.

The company provided dinner that night and Eve showed up at the chow hall to partake. Evan was sleepy, so about halfway through the dinner he forwent policy and crawled up in his aunt's lap, curled against her, and passed out cold as a wagon tire. The conversation continued for another half an hour before Evan woke up again and asked if it was time to go home yet. She gathered the dark-haired kid in her arms and Tim held the door for her and followed her out to her jeep. He watched Sanger make to rise out of the corner of his eye and Pendleton put an arm out to stop the man.

Good grief they ALL knew.

He popped the door open on the passenger side and Eve eased her nephew into the seat. He was asleep again before she'd gotten the seatbelt buckled, nodding over onto his right shoulder.

"Well…I guess I'd better get this child home…."

"Hey Eve….."

"Deputy Tim?"

"I…we still haven't hashed this out yet."

"I believe it was supposed to be an explanation, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. I mean… would you like to go out? I don't have to leave until Saturday."

"I'm going out of the country on Saturday, Tim."

Oh. Oh hell. Planting trees in Sedona.

"Are you still going to be here Friday?"

"Um, yeah. We're having a debriefing Friday afternoon so…"

"So Friday night then?"

"Yeah! That sounds good." He dug his hands into his pockets and bit the sides of his cheeks. Waaaaay too much enthusiasm."

"Your brief oughtta be done sometime around six, so why don't you come out to the house at seven and we can leave from there?"

"Okay. That sounds good."

"Okay then." She pecked him on the cheek before he realized what was happening and walked around the vehicle. "See you 'round, Deputy Tim."

He waved as she pulled out and must've stood there longer than Pendleton and Lish thought was necessary because the old man coughed.

Tim turned around and his ears were already a fire-red. Lish had a hand over her mouth to hold it all back and Pendleton just shook his head.

"Too damn much caution, Probie. Too damn much caution."


	13. Poker Hand

It was windy the next day, so it made for a good testing ground. Back to the range they went and since they were bored with the little inch-wide discs they absconded with a deck of cards, stapled them to a board and set it up around five hundred yards out. Five players, fifty-four cards. Deuces and the Joker were wild. Alicia got the best hand and Wallace decided that that meant she owed them all drinks later.

"Hey, didn't they do this in that cop movie?" Sanger looked up from his sandwich, eyebrows twitching.

"Do what?"

"The poker game thing. Samuel L. Jackson, that hot Mexican chick, that Irish dude, whasisname…"

Wallace kicked him in the shins and he glanced sheepishly at Lish.

She laughed outright. "My parents are from El Salvador."

"Aw. So…does that make it alright then?"

They cracked up at his hopeful expression. Tactful he weren't.

0ooooooo000000000ooooo0000

And then she dropped by the chow hall that night after chow and dashed his hopes.

"We can't go Friday?" He asked, biting the inside of his cheeks.

"No, I'm so sorry, I'm..."

He didn't hear her, because mentally he was thinking 'planting trees in Sedona.'

"Well hell," he drawled.

"I'm soo sorry, Tim." She scuffed a boot-toe in the dirt- she was in boots and jeans today and it suited her, he thought.

"It's not your fault, Eve. It's okay."

She sighed. "I still feel awful about it."

"What about tonight?"

She thought for half a second. "No, I'm going to be packing. There's really no other time to do it."

"Well hell," he said again, and saw her to her car.

Pendleton was at the point in his life where he needed to wear reading glasses for close-up things like newspapers, and he had perfected the art of producing arch expressions over the top of the tortoise-shell rims. Tim rolled his eyes at the man when he walked back inside and dropped to the concrete floor, ripping through fifty push-ups before he decided he was past the worst of it.

"Spontaneous push-ups, huh?" That was from Lish.

Tim tugged on his running shoes and left the building.

And what the heck was he so pissed for anyhow? This was beyond control or predictability and the fact that he was honked off about it wasn't going to change the fact that she was going to have to LEAVE the COUNTRY before they had any kinda chance to…

To what, he didn't know.

He got back sore and sweaty and madder than he had been initially. Pendleton had not moved but the other three were in various stages of sleep.

He was out of the shower in five minutes, and still he couldn't bring himself to stretch out on the cot. He paced. Pendleton maintained his silence and kept the paper tilted at such an angle that Tim could see nothing but his eyes behind the dark-framed glasses. Tim paced some more. Pendleton turned five pages. Tim leaned against the window. Pendleton took his time on the sixth page. Tim took note of the reflection in the window and realized that the contractor- because that was what the man was, through and through - was not reading the local paper. Tim turned to face him and dropped into the chair across the table from Pendleton.

"Sierra Leone?"

Pendleton folded the paper and set it down in front of him. "I like to keep up with things. Freetown is a different world now."

"From back when you were with EO?" Had to be.

He shrugged. "Like I said. I was intrepid. All the way up into the 90's."

The idea that Joshua Pendleton was probably still living off of blood diamonds crossed Tim's mind but he didn't say anything. They were quiet, Tim bending his head sideways so he could read the front page.

Finally, Pendleton slung his glasses off and pinned him with those blue eyes.

"How old are you, Tim?"

"Older than I care to think about."

"Early 30's? Late 30's?"

Tim winced.

"You look like a kid. And you're acting like a kid. Listen…." Pendleton pulled a plainfaced pocket watch from his shirt pocket and popped it open. He pushed it across the table at Tim. She was pretty, brown-eyed and blonde, and at the most, half of Pendleton's age. "That's wife number three. I don't know how long she's going to last me, but you need to understand something. There are ways to live your life where you can't even think about having somebody. Knowing that somebody's going to be there when you get home and all you need is a mattress under your bones and all she wants is you. You keep fiddle-fartin' around and you're going to lose that opportunity. Do you understand me?"

Tim cocked a brow, continuing to listen.

"You're at a place in your life where you can actually give that girl the time she deserves. You know that. Quit being so cautious."

Gutterson leaned back in his chair, stared at the ceiling. "You know, my boss basically told me the same thing."

"Art Mullin?"

"Yeah. He's a good man."

"I know."

Pendleton tucked himself behind his paper again. Tim rose to his feet, snagged his truck keys from the AWOL bag on his cot, and made for the door.

He turned back, about to thank the man, but Pendleton just snorted at him. "By the way, I never said it was Executive Outcomes."

Gutterson half-smiled and walked out into the crickets and the dark.

Sanger rolled over on his cot when the door banged closed and raised a sleep-drugged brow at Pendleton.

"He's being sensible," Josh commented.

"Aw." Sanger heaved a long breath. "What'n'hell took'im so long?"

0oooooooo000000000ooooo0000

The gate was closed, so he left his truck on the far side of it and walked in, stopping about a hundred yards from the house. She didn't have a dog so there was nothing to sound the alarm. The lights in the back room were still on, and that was a plus, he guessed. Tim dropped his hands into his jean pockets, hunched into his jacket, and took his time walking in.

It crossed his mind that she might shoot him.

He stood out in the yard listening. He heard a profound thump and some creative, if muffled, swearing. He waited until it abated before stepping up to the porch and knocking three times.

Everything went completely still, and he heard her, light on her feet until she got to the foyer and then walking normally. She had a weapon in her hand of some kind. He was certain of that.

"Who's there?"

"Uh…"

And then the door sprang open. "Deputy Tim?" She was still dressed, much like he'd first seen her. That button-down shirt and the worn out jean shorts.

"Well that was easy." He grinned before he could squelch it.

"You realize it's nigh midnight?"

"I…Eve I want to talk to you. I at least want to explain myself."

She looked him over for a long moment. If it had been any other man she would have asked why it couldn't be done over the phone, but Bobby Rushdie had said he was this way. And she was up anyways. "Well come on in, then."

He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the hall tree. "What was all that cussin' a few minutes ago?"

She cranked a look at him back over her shoulder and he winced. "Creep much, Deputy Gutterson?"

"All the time, Miss Eve."

She laughed quietly. "I knocked my suitcase off the bed by accident. Scattered everything everywhere."

"It sounded like a load of bricks."

"It was about as heavy. Come on back."

They tiptoed past Evan's bedroom and indeed, the suitcase was down. They picked up the mess and he helped her fold the outerwear and re-pack it. They made small-talk and he was silently grateful that she was willing to let him take his time getting it out. Around 1:30 he let go with a jaw-popping yawn and she declared that they both needed to go to bed.

"Well, I can leave if you like…"

"Naw, I'll just put you on the couch. You've only got a few hours til chow anyways." She pulled a set of sheets down from the closet and pitched one of her pillows at him. "Can I trust you to make a comfortable couch bed while I get in my PJs?"

"Yes ma'am." He took the sheets and was meticulous. They were white with little yellow flowers. Cute. Interestingly, the pillow was precisely the way he liked them; not entirely firm, but not so soft that it folded in half around his head either. Tim wasn't sure what to make of that. He was aware from the outset that she hadn't given him a blanket, but he decided it was the better part of valor to wait until she was dressed in her pajamas to go knocking on her bedroom door.

The shower kicked on then, and he settled on the couch to wait.

0ooooooo000000000ooooo0000

A/N: Executive Outcomes operated out of South Africa starting in '89 and no longer remain on the field of private security as that entity. Google them. Then read Robert Pelton's book. It will put things into perspective. The movie mentioned at the beginning is called SWAT.


	14. Options

A/N: PROVISIONARY 'M' RATING. There is, indeed, smut in this chapter. I have my reasons, and I will explain them if you would like, but there's plot elements to this too.

* * *

><p>The water stopped running five minutes later. Tim weighed his options before sticking his head around the door of her bedroom. "Hey, you decent?"<p>

"No…" She sounded a bit muffled and he was about to step into the room when he heard the shower door slide open. "You can come in though, if you like."

Now how in the blue hell was he supposed to take that? "Uh…."

She laughed at that and he heard her wet feet on the linoleum and then slinging something heavy around herself. She padded to the bathroom doorway and peaked around it, much the same as he was doing around the bedroom doorframe. Without his asking, she tugged the blanket off the foot of her bed and handed it to him.

Tim was sheepish. She was too, and that made it a little easier to deal with.

"We're kind of a bashful pair, aren't we?" Eve asked, tugging the robe closer around her shoulders.

"Yes ma'am." He grinned at the floor.

"Would you like some coffee?"

"At this hour?"

"Sure. The crash off the caffeine puts me to sleep pretty quick. I started doing it when we were still…still in Lexington."

"Then I'd be glad to."

They were quiet, scooting down the hall past Evan's bedroom. The kitchen was one of the smallest rooms in the house, boxed away from the living room and the foyer by counters and shelves. There were two entrances; one right by the back door that could be closed, and one that led to the dining room. The counters ran in a semi-circle, leaving room for a table and a couple of chairs, while the stove, sink, dishwasher, and microwave were flush against the outside wall of the house. To Tim, the place looked like a fort.

She noticed him looking and he told her what he thought. "Julio said the same thing when we looked at this place. Evan really liked the idea."

"Who's Julio?"

"My body-guard." She started the coffee pot and Tim chewed on the fact that the woman he might be seeing required a bodyguard for her everyday use while he arranged the blanket on the couch. The pot began to chug and chortle, and she turned to look up at him.

"It's different, isn't it?"

"What?" He was leaning against the counter now, wrestling with the gritty edge of sleep.

"Being back in this kinda swing of things."

"You mean the security business?"

"Yeah."

"I…I guess, I mean, I don't know. I never worked private security, so I only got a whiff of this kind of air every now and again. And to tell you the truth, some of the people in this business piss me off."

She nodded, pulled down two mugs from the cabinet above the coffee pot. "Guess you take it black?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"They piss me off too, you know. I like the ones with their heads on their shoulders. It's the ones that come into this business looking for an excuse to kill when they care to, and that's ALL they're here for, that piss me off. 'Gotta have that mad minute. Gotta have a way to blow this steam off.' Those guys are nothin' but sheep killin' dogs and there's no use in that. They're damaged goods. And they've lost all respect for life, if they had any to start with." She poured him a mug of coffee, then poured one for herself and popped open the freezer. "Crown?"

Tim shrugged and she dropped a slug of the liquor in each of their mugs. She handed him his, and the coffee was good. She followed hers up with cream and sugar, and then turned to face him, leaning against the counter in her cheap cotton bathrobe. They sipped on the dark brew for a moment.

"I wouldn't have thought XE or the Academi was in the business of hiring fools," Tim stated.

"They aren't. U.S. Training Center isn't either, but…" she shrugged. "The market's kind of flooded at the moment. There are a lot of people that know how to talk the talk and be fairly convincing. I'd rather have somebody like your Pendleton around."

Tim nodded. Shrewd girl. Shrewd. His admiration solidified, and in it, he found the barest line of courage.

"You know…." He started. How did he tell her this? "You know I didn't believe a word your daddy said about you."

"No?"

"Nope. Not until I called Bobby Rushdie. And then I still didn't like it."

"How come?"

"Because I don't like being wrong. And I was already inclined to be mad at you over Music."

"Music?"

Tim gritted his teeth, hauled out his wallet, and handed her the photo. She followed much the same process as Art had, treating it delicately, drawing in a breath at the dates.

"The first time I saw you, I thought… I don't know what I thought. Thought it was too good to be true. And because of that, there was nothing I could trust about the situation. Except Evan. Basically…..this is foolish. Basically there was too much unsettled about Kathy for me to be anything but mad. And seeing you… It gave me somebody to actually be angry at."

She nodded, took a sip of her coffee. The silence stretched a little farther than comfortable, and then she spoke.

"Well where are you now, Deputy Tim? Are you still mad at me?"

"No ma'am, I'm not." Blunt came easy these days.

"Then where are you?"

"Admiring, Miss South. Proud to know you. Where are _you_?"

"Understanding the situation better. She could be my twin."

"Only from a distance. You two are different as night and day."

"What was she like?"

And so he talked for a good ten minutes without interruption, and Eve listened, nodding. And when he was done he didn't feel any lighter-loaded. But the weight was settled in a different way. And then all the sudden the mood in the room changed.

She grinned at him over her coffee cup. "Are you into me, Deputy Tim?" Whoa. Of COURSE she played hardball.

He smiled into his coffee. "Yes ma'am I am."

"Good."

His head snapped up. "Are you sure?"

"I don't have room to be anything _but,_ Deputy."

He chuckled at that, and pushed off of the counter. "So is this gonna be a sanctioned thing or are we gonna have to operate on the down-low?"

"Mr. Prince has your entire military record at his disposal. If it's not sanctioned he's going to have to sanction it and get over himself."

He laughed. "No concern for your daddy?"

"My daddy gave you a dog. He approves." She sat her coffee mug down and stepped into his arms, looking straight up at him.

"And what about Evan?"

"He wants to play construction again. You and Wallace, he said."

Tim had a shudder run up his spine and he sat his own coffee down on the counter before he dropped it. Dear Lord. He ran a hand up through her hair and cradled the back of her head. "You understand I might do worse than kiss you in the immediate future."

She laughed. "You might, huh?"

He dropped his mouth to cover hers and she met him halfway, angling her jaw to match him. He pulled back, dropped a brief, hot kiss on the ridge of her right cheek, and drew a shaking breath. His body was screaming at him and his brain was screaming at him, and she rolled her eyes and took his conflicted ass to the couch. She dropped her robe over the back with the sheets, and he was half disappointed, half not that she was dressed underneath it in a pair of black boy briefs and a yellow tank top. She sat down on the couch and extended her hand, pulling him down to the cushions next to her.

"We have time to do this right," she said, and he laughed against her mouth. "I intend to."

Tim paused at that, pulled his head back. "Does that mean I'm not getting lucky?"

"That means that you're the luckiest bastard in this rarified sphere and you'd better soak it up." She laughed and pulled his head back down where she could reach him, slinging a leg over his lap and straddling him.

Dear Lord WASN'T he? She stretched back, dropping a hand to his waist and pulling the tail of his button-down loose to get at the skin. He groaned at that, his hips inadvertently bucking up as she skimmed long fingers across his stomach. She smiled and began working the buttons loose on his shirt. He slid his hands up the back of her tank top and simply explored. The smoothness and spring of her rib-cage, the groove of her spine—he could almost feel the vertebrae and determined to take a closer look in the morning, and of a sudden that elegance impeded by…. He raised a brow at her. It was two inches immediately left of the wing of her right shoulder blade. It felt like a literal rupture of the skin, cheap satin set in the silk.

"Exit wound. While I was over yonder. Daddy doesn't know."

"It hit your lung, Eve."

"I'm breathing now, Deputy."

He slipped a long thumb under the edge of her breast and the air whooshed out of her, whiskey and coffee and sweetness. She was almost above him now, and he ran his fingers into her hair, wanting that taste in his mouth again. He pulled the hand from under her shirt and brought it up to spread across her left breast. Do it right, she said. Soak it up, she said. Two could play at this game. He crushed her whimper back into her mouth with a hard kiss, then settled his hands on her hips, pushing her into his lap.

"Let me look at you, Eve. Please. I want to see."

She raised her arms to his shoulders and kissed him again, shaking. Tim got the hint and helped her work the shirt back off of his shoulders and popped his wrists through the cuffs. Her eyes lit up unbidden at the muscle, and she started, eager, across his back. He shuddered, tempted, but changed his mind. Running a hand up her arm to her wrist, he stilled her with a look. "Trust me, Eve? Please. Please let me see you…"

Eve took in his eyes, the set of his mouth, and nodded. He leaned back against the couch, drinking her in with his eyes and letting his hands follow. There was a small scar on her left cheekbone, hooking up around the ocular ridge and he made note, as his thumb traveled across it, to ask for that story later. Then down along her neck as she arched into his touch and to the broken collarbone. He couldn't resist bringing his mouth to it, sucking his way down the cord of her neck to the irregularity there. He hit a sensitive spot and she growled in frustration, her hips twisting on his lap. He slapped both hands down on her thighs and grinned up to her.

"You said to do it right, didja not?"

"I didn't bank on you being so sssll—ooh, do that again."

He scraped his teeth across the base of her neck and she fought his grip again. "Not slow. Thorough."

He'd made himself wait. He'd been good. But her breasts were quaking with the rest of her and he used the cotton of the tank top to his advantage. He leaned back again, shifting himself against the heat radiating through her briefs and traced his hands up her ribcage, stopping with his thumbs just below her breasts. Eve's mind was blazing; he could see it. She fixed him with those green, glassed over eyes, and in that moment agreed to play his game. He needed to know the differences. She would have her way in the end, but she realized what this was about.

And so she rolled her shoulders in, making it easier for him. He hooked a thumb on her right nipple, letting the cotton ribbing pull across it, and she jumped, whispering something he didn't understand. He brought his mouth down to the stretched cotton and took a drag on her left nipple, worrying the ribbed cotton across the tender skin. She came up on her knees at that, gasping, and he obliged. The angle was perfect. He switched to the right breast and she hung her hands in his hair, breath rattling, head tilted back. Tim caught the top of her briefs with index fingers and worked them down off her hips and onto her thighs. She stilled, and then he let his hands start exploring again and her knees began to tremble.

Nope, he decided. He couldn't have her knees giving out on him. Not yet. So he hooked an arm around each of her thighs, trailed his fingertips up to rest at the top of them, and brought his mouth down to her center. He trailed his tongue up, lashing her clit, and then pulling back to suck every piece into his mouth in turn. Thorough, not slow. The high whine in her breathing clued him in, and Gutterson stretched one finger up from where it was anchored on her thigh and slipped it inside of her. He shifted his mouth to her clitoris and began to suck mercilessly. She began to throb around his finger, and that single, cautious scrape of his teeth sent her over the edge like a rocket. Her body arched back from his supporting hands and it was all he could do to hang onto her as she shuddered into oblivion. Time hung still in the air.

Slowly, slowly, she came back onto the Earth and met his eyes. He didn't know what to do with the wonder on her face and so pressed his forehead to hers as she sank back onto his lap. She looped her arms around him and they worked to match breathing.

It took them a while to realize that time was still moving, and by the time that had happened, Tim had stretched them out and pulled the blanket down over their shoulders.

"Show-off," she said against his chest. He couldn't help but laugh.

"You were the one that said we had time to do this right."

"Mmhmm. That I did."

Gutterson hooked her leg up over his hip and fitted her face against his neck. "Here's what I've got, Eve. I'm not perfect. I'm not good at bein' wrong. You can't read my handwriting for shit. I have never been good at basketball. But I'm patient. And I've got a heart."

She tilted her head up and kissed his throat. "Stop frettin'. We wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't set on trying for it. I trust you."

"For serious?"

"YOU. For SERIOUS."

He snugged his arms a little tighter around the Kentucky girl and they crashed onto sleep, true to Eve's prediction.

0oooooooo000000000ooooo0000

He had more questions than answers, but he made chow and shot like a champion for the rest of the week. Pendleton had a twinkle in his eye.

She was going to be back stateside in eight days.

They had an official date in ten.

Tim walked into the office Monday morning with Rachel's coffee and that was all that kept her from ratting him out.

* * *

><p>AN II: (chews nails) Thoughts?


	15. Happening

A/N: Hello all! It is SO good to be back! I needed some place to get started again and these lovely little crack-ficcy things have been rattling around in my brain for a while.

0ooooooo00000000ooooo0000

He waited until she'd left her desk to use the bathroom before he swung into action. The coffee hit her fairly quickly. Unsavory to know this? Tim just viewed it as practical.

"TIIIIIMMM!" Rachel screamed bloody murder when she saw her desk, but he was locking himself in the conference room with her neatly organized stacks of paperwork by the time she'd oriented herself enough to give chase.

"Go home!" he yelled through the thick panes of glass.

"Give me back my paperwork!"

"Go home! It's your birthday!"

"Tiiiim!" She pounded on the glass.

"Can't heeeeeeaaaaaaarrr you!"

"Tim, open this door and let me have my paperwork! Please?"

"Over hill over dale as we hit the dusty trail…." His voice cracked up the upswing of 'trail', but he clapped both hands over his ears and kept singing at the top of his lungs.

It was at this point that Art intervened, taking Rachel by the elbow in a most gentlemanly fashion, sweeping her bag from her desk chair, and escorting her to the door. "Too much overtime wears Rachel out. And since Rachel is my best girl deputy and it IS her birthday, Rachel does not get to work today."

Something very like utter distress crossed her face and she broke down far enough to appeal to Raylan. He simply pointed towards the door. "He ain't lyin', woman. And good lord get outta here before Tim decides he can quit his day job!"

"And the caissons go rollin' a-looooooooongg!"

Rachel practically ran out the door, Tim grinning at her back.

"You know," Art remarked, "I bet she was one of those kids that woulda seen getting expelled from school as a bad thing." He wheeled around and strolled up to the glass partition. Tim cleared his throat and tried to appear serious.

"I hope you have the key to that door, Tim, because I don't."

Tim shrugged. "I can pick it if I have to." He waggled his Leatherman at Art through the glass. "Either that or just break it. Seems like it's due that kinda treatment again."

Art was just as good as Raylan at acting put-upon. Like he was now, fishing the key out of his pocket and letting Tim out of the conference room.

Raylan shook his head.

0oooooooo000000000ooooo0000

Tim was in his pickup rolling south three hours later. They let him through the gate of the compound and he was surprised to find the gate to Eve's house open- but it made sense. She knew he was coming. They had a date the next afternoon- matinee showing of 'Brave.' It took Evan until halfway through dinner to decide that he was going to be a bear-cub from the movie. He was a contemplative kid to begin with but his silence and wide-eyed stare was something else again. So was the sudden lack of table manners.

They put the boy to bed (he growled in protest) and Eve took him by the hand and led him down the hallway. The breath-taking kiss had happened the night before so this time around, the first contact of the night was slow. They'd been listening to Bob Seger on the way back in so 'We've Got Tonight' came to mind almost instantly. They hit the mattress still half-dressed, Tim barefoot and down to his jeans. She had appropriated his t-shirt from the night before and the fact that she'd worn it under her button-down all day suggested that he wasn't going to get it back. It was black, and went well with the gauzy things she was calling panties.

"I like you in lace," he remarked.

"I like you in jeans."

He ran a hand through her hair. Where-ever she'd been in the past few weeks, her mane had bleached out almost completely red, and it led his wondering mind back to the movie for a bit.

"You ever get into archery?"

"Nope. Shooting made better sense to me. And I kept burnin' my arm on the string."

Tim raised up a little and eyeballed her. "You're right handed though."

"Not by choice I'm not."

"You one of them that the teacher beat in the hand until you switched?"

"Yup. I'm pretty ambidextrous but my dominant eye is still on the left. My handguns are all set up left handed. My rifle's a left handed bolt-action. Couldn't shoot Daddy's right handed bow to save my life and I couldn't switch hands either. I just never fooled with it much."

"Ambidextrous, huh?"

"Uh-huh." She grinned up at him.

"You know that means double dealin', too, right?"

She smirked at him. Tim lost most of his ability to focus shortly thereafter.

0ooooooo00000000ooooo0000

0ooooooo00000000ooooo0000

He nearly strutted into the office when he got back.

Tim strolled over, flopped into his desk chair to ascertain his paperwork, and looked up. Art was shaking his head at his deputy through his office door, doleful. Gutterson shrugged his shoulders and mouthed "What?"

Art heaved himself out of his chair and popped open the door. "There's no hope for you, boy."

Tim just grinned at him.

"No really, there isn't. Your girlfriend's brother-in-law popped back up on our radar again."

"Who says I have a girlfriend? Who says I have a girlfriend with a brother-in-law?" He leaned back in his chair, locking his fingers into a cradle behind his head. The grin still hadn't gone away.

Rachel coughed at him from behind her mountain of paperwork. "What?"

"One cocky bastard in this bull-pen is enough, Timothy. Raylan's enough to make me gag by himself!"

"Oh. My apologies." Art chuckled at that and moseyed on back to his comfy chair.

Tim straightened up with some flair and looked across the way at her expectantly.

She ignored him for a moment, and then sighed. "What do you want?"

"Am I to assume that the birthday stunt is the reason you ratted me out?"

"Am you can assume anything you like. The gentlemen in Harlan got wind of Evan Riffe three days ago and they've been keeping tabs on his whereabouts for us. It seems as if he's taken up residence with an individual we're all too familiar with."

Gutterson waited. Rachel's brow creased in a funny way, as it always did when something she wasn't expecting occurred.

"Clan Crowder seems to have made Mr. Riffe welcome for the time being."

"What for, though? He's just a petty crook. No skills, so to speak."

"Muscle, they think. Raylan's down there now huntin' around."

"Aw."

"Aw," agreed Art from his chair. "Tim I want you to run another check on the man- details being fairly important..."

Gutterson nodded, spun his chair to his computer monitor and started to boot up the antiquated beast. Without realizing it, he began humming the U. S. Army Anthem under his breath. Rachel let it go on for a little while and then winged a balled up piece of paper at him.

He grinned at her and kept right on humming. At this point in his life, wasn't nothin' gonna get him down. Not even the prospect of his very own Harlan County Drama.

0ooooooo00000000ooooo0000

These things are worth noting.

1) Eve is only about three hours south of Tim. Not exactly convenient, but still.

2) Brave was a magnificent film and if you haven't gone to see it I apologize for the spoilers and refuse all rights to its ownership.

3) Most compound recurve hunting bows (at least the majority of the bows I've encountered) are set up for right handed shooters. If you look up a picture of one, you're going to see that the bowstrings are strung on a pair of wheels and that when you pull them back, the string farthest from from the arm that is holding the bow is pulled tight and straight. If you are shooting a right-handed bow left-handed, your left arm is only a centimeter or two from that string. When you loose the arrow, the arm holding the bow moves inward. And again, if you're shooting with the 'wrong' hand, that means it moves toward that string and you wind up with what looks like a 1/16th inch wide strip of road rash awful close to the crease of your arm.

4) Leatherman makes the grand-daddy of all multi-tools. They are awesome.


End file.
